House votes put harsh spotlight on Obamacare delays

House Republicans have passed anti-Obamacare legislation dozens of times and for dozens of reasons. On Wednesday, it was to make Democrats and the Obama administration squirm.

In the first votes since the administration postponed the health law’s employer coverage requirements for a year, the House passed a bill authorizing the delay — and then followed it up immediately with a vote to give the same delay to the individual mandate.

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It didn’t exactly work as planned. The employer mandate delay passed 264-161, but only 35 Democrats voted for it. All of the rest opposed the delay, allowing them to say they didn’t walk into the Republicans’ trap.

And the vote for the individual mandate delay was only a bit closer — 251-174, with just 22 Democrats siding with the Republicans.

One Republican, Morgan Griffith of Virginia, voted against both bills, explaining in a statement that “Obamacare is like an abscessed tooth – delaying fixing the problem is not going to make it better; it only makes it worse.”

President Barack Obama will get his chance to respond Thursday. He’s giving a speech on how the health care law is saving money for consumers and cracking down on health insurance companies, a way of convincing Americans that they’ll get real benefits out of the law.

But it’s his first Obamacare speech since the employer mandate delay was announced, and the back-to-back House votes guarantee that he’ll have to overcome yet another wave of bad news about the law.

In the long run, the Republicans’ goal isn’t just to delay parts of the law, of course. They still want to kill it — which is why their “repeal and replace” message is now turning into a strategy of “delay and dismantle.”

But Wednesday’s votes, coming just two weeks after the White House announced it would postpone the health law’s requirements on large businesses, provided an opening for House Speaker John Boehner and his team to launch a populist attack on Obamacare less than three months before key pieces of the law take effect. Why, they asked over and over again, should big businesses get a break when hard-working Americans don’t?

“I believe they’ve run out of excuses, they’ve run out of ideas, and now they’re starting to backpedal,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.)

The delay, Republicans argue, proves that the law is impossibly difficult to implement — and shows that the administration as more concerned with shielding deep-pocketed, well-connected businesses from onerous requirements of the health law than it is with protecting individuals, who wouldn’t get a break from the coverage mandate under the administration’s decision.

“Why is it that under this White House, Warren Buffett gets a break from Obamacare, but Joe Six-Pack, the single mom … they don’t get a break?” asked Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), a top Ways and Means Committee Republican.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) insisted the votes were meaningless. “Don’t take any of these votes for real. They’re gotcha votes,” he told his colleagues during the floor debate.

Republicans, however, said they weren’t just symbolic votes — because the employer mandate delay shows the law isn’t ready for prime time.

“This law is unraveling before us,” said Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). “This law is imploding.”